In The Animals' rendition, the lyrics were slightly reordered and reworded from the demo and opened with a locational allusion – although different from that in the songwriters' minds – that was often taken as fitting the group's industrial, working classNewcastle-upon-Tyne origins:[5][6][7]

In this dirty old part of the city

Where the sun refused to shine

People tell me, there ain't no use in tryin'

Next came a verse about the singer's father in his deathbed after a lifetime of working his life away, followed by a call-and-response buildup, leading to the start of the chorus:

We gotta get out of this place!

If it's the last thing we ever do ...

The arrangement featured a distinctive bass lead by group member Chas Chandler.[8] This was the first single not to be recorded by the original line-up, following as it did the departure of keyboard player Alan Price and his replacement by Dave Rowberry. It featured one of singer Eric Burdon's typically raw, fierce vocals.[9][10]Rolling Stone described the overall effect as a "harsh white-blues treatment from The Animals. As [Burdon] put it, 'Whatever suited our attitude, we just bent to our own shape.'"[11]

The UK and U.S. single releases were different versions from the same recording sessions. The take that EMI, The Animals' parent record company, sent to MGM Records, the group's American label, was mistakenly one that had not been selected for release elsewhere. The two versions are most easily differentiated by the lyric at the beginning of the second verse: in the U.S. version the lyric is, "See my daddy in bed a-dyin'," while the UK version uses, "Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin'."

In the U.S. the song (in its "mistaken" take) was included on the album Animal Tracks, released in the fall 1965, and again on the popular compilation The Best of The Animals released in 1966. The song was not on any British Animals album during the group's lifetime.

Once Animals reissues began occurring during the compact disc era, Allen Klein, by now owner of ABKCO and the rights to this material, dictated that the "correct" British version be used on all reissues and compilations everywhere. Thus, as U.S. radio stations converted from vinyl records to CDs, gradually only the British version became heard. Some collectors and fans in the U.S. wrote letters of complaint to Goldmine magazine, saying they believed the U.S. version featured an angrier and more powerful vocal from Burdon, and in any case wanted to hear the song in the form they had grown up with. The 2004 remastered SACDRetrospective compilation from ABKCO included the U.S. version.

At the time, the title and simple emotional appeal of "We Gotta Get out of This Place" lent itself to some obvious self-identifications — for instance, it was a very popular number to be played at high school senior proms and graduation parties. In music writer Dave Marsh's view, it was one of a wave of songs in 1965, by artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, that ushered in a new role for rock music as a vehicle for common perception and as a force for social consciousness.[15] Writer Craig Werner sees the song as reflecting the desire of people to take a hard look at their own lives and the community they come from.[10] Burdon later said, "The song became an anthem for different people – everybody at some time wants to get out of the situation they're in."[5]

The song was very popular with United States Armed Forces members stationed in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[7] It was frequently requested of, and played by, American Forces Vietnam Networkdisc jockeys.[16] During 2006 two University of Wisconsin–Madison employees, one a Vietnam veteran, began an in-depth survey of hundreds of Vietnam veterans, and found that "We Gotta Get out of This Place" had resonated the strongest among all the music popular then: "We had absolute unanimity is this song being the touchstone. This was the Vietnam anthem. Every bad band that ever played in an armed forces club had to play this song."[17] Just such a band played the song in an episode ("USO Down", by Vietnam veteran Jim Beaver) of the American television series about the war, Tour of Duty, and the song is reprised in the episode's final scene.

It has also been used as the title of editorials by American Journalism Review[19] and other publications. The title was even used to name an art exhibit, curated by Stefan Kalmar at the Cubitt Gallery in London in 1997.

^Spelling on original Columbia Graphophone single release label used the "We've" form; the sleeve left out the "Of". However, song publisher BMI registers it as "We" (see BMI searchable database) as do the large majority of music references sources and album labels.